


I'd Do It Again If I Could

by jendavis



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: satedan_grabass, M/M, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-14
Updated: 2012-04-14
Packaged: 2017-11-03 15:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jendavis/pseuds/jendavis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It always starts the same way, and almost always <i>ends</i> the same way, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd Do It Again If I Could

**Author's Note:**

  * For [esteefee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteefee/gifts).



It always starts the same way. 

"You don't have to go easy on me," John says, and the bruise from the last round hasn't formed on his arm yet, but it will. He's smirking as they circle each other on the mat. 

"Yes I do," Ronon says, but this- the sparring- isn't what he means. 

In forty minutes or so, John will die again. Three minutes after that, Atlantis will self destruct. And Ronon- _just_ Ronon- will be right _here_. Right back where he started. 

He's been through this twenty-six times already, give or take. 

Before the dread has time to clutch at him, he dives back to the bench, grabbing his radio ignoring the promise he'd made himself. He can't just sit this one out. If he's right-

Maybe this time. 

Wrestling the earpiece into place, he's just in time to hear the startled shout from the control room- _unscheduled offworld activation_ \- twenty seconds before it's broadcast over the PA.

John's staring at him like he's crazy, not understanding that if Ronon took the time to talk him through it right now, the way he had the first few times, they'd only last twenty seven minutes. It's taken him two dozen tries to get them up past thirty. 

"We've got to go. I'll explain on the way."

John's always quick to follow. It's one of the only things that ever goes right. 

\--- 

_The first time it had happened, he wondered if maybe John had gotten a lucky punch in, but that didn't explain the nightmare that followed, or the fact that when it ended, it started all over again._

\---

"I'm stuck in a loop," Ronon says as they head into the hallway. "Like that movie with the golf and the rodents."

"Groundhog day? Seriously? That was-"

"You've seen stranger things before," he cuts him off quickly, not wasting time by explaining that _John_ had told him about the movie the last time they'd been through this. And _there's_ the announcement from the control room, right on time.

" _Unscheduled offworld activation_."

John quickens his step, trying to move ahead, and it's either habit instinct that stops Ronon from letting him. John arriving in the gate room first won't be what kills him. There've already been too many slight variances to count, but it never happens so quickly. but it won't fix anything either, and Ronon's got few opportunities over the next forty minutes to be at all selfish. 

The shield's raised by the time they arrive, and McKay's sputtering at whatever he's looking at on his computer again. That's not Ronon's first problem right now, though. He needs to warn Weir what's coming next. 

"It's Michael," he says. "He knows the shield's going to fail if he keeps attacking it long enough." 

"I'm sorry?" Weir frowns at him, surprised. Lorne and the others surrounding her look skeptical, the way they always do. 

"How do you-"

"Groundhog Day by way of the sun," he says, slamming together the best explanations he's been able to gather over the past several iterations. This would be _so_ much easier if he wasn't the only who remembered. This time, he's decided, he's going to try laying all his cards on the table immediately. Doing otherwise hadn't saved anyone any panic last time around, though so far, it hadn't gained him any ground. "The wraith attack, Sheppard's goes down, then we're going to blow up. It's happened dozens of times now." 

Weir is shaking her head, leaning in close as if Ronon really needed to hear what she was trying to say. "I'm sorry, I still don't-"

"Follow, I know." Ronon sighs, but doesn't really have the time for it. He finds that he'd positioned himself on the wrong side of Weir to see the clock on Chuck's computer screen, can't make out what time it is. "In a little while, there will be a solar flare. It's going to do something to the gate, make it drop the shield. The wraith send a small bomb in first, enough to take out most of the gate room before they start coming through. They've got stunners, and I think they found one of the offworld weapons cache."

Something in his tone, this time, is enough for John to nod curtly before reaching for his radio and ordering all military personnel into defensive positions for a possible beachhead. "This is not a drill," he finishes. "I repeat, this is not a drill. Lorne's team is heading up the evacuation of all non-military personnel. All other teams, stand by for further orders." 

The only reason Ronon doesn't explain that it's a waste of time, that it won't do any good, is that he doesn't honestly know that the clock's going to rewind itself. There could be a preset number of iterations it's planning on running, or something he hasn't seen yet could make it stop, letting the fallout land where it may. As usual, there's nothing to be gained by hanging around wondering. He turns on his heel and heads over to where McKay's scrolling furiously through the gate diagnostics program. 

"How would a solar flare create a disruption in the wormhole?" He asks, then stops himself. McKay had explained it half a dozen times already, and it had only wound up killing them sooner. But he's got to ease him into it. "More importantly, how do you stop it?"

"Sure, just come to me with the most impossible question ever and expect me to parse out a completely untested solution in a way that you'd understand." McKay shakes his head; it takes him a torturous half a minute to look up from the screen. "Actually, Zelenka and I were talking about this a few months ago, following up some research from SG1." He blinks. "Where _is_ Zelenka, anyway?"

"He went with Teyla to fix the water filtration system out on the mainland. You whined your way out of it, remember?" Ronon reminds him. _Which is good, because this is more complicated than a water filter and you're the smartest guy around_ , he'd added once. He'd even tried _Luckily for us, you're still here_ , but that hadn't changed anything at all. "I need you to help me find the notes he was taking at the time."

"He was taking notes?" McKay will remember in just a few seconds. It still feels too long, though, and Ronon's dragging him out of the gate room towards the lab before it happens. "Oh, right! We were working on a protocol that would allow offworld teams to-"

"Override the shield's OS directly, allowing you to raise it without risking a dial-in, I know."

"Wait. Huh?"

Ronon doesn't feel like going over it again. "Time's repeating itself," he says, edging towards the side of the hallway just before Cadman comes barreling around it. I'm the only one who seems to notice."

"That's insane." McKay fumbles his laptop as they enter the lab. "Why only you?"

"Don't know," he says, and maybe McKay's actually heard his tone for once, because he's letting Ronon slide without further explanation. Ronon starts pulling the folders he'd pulled last time that McKay had previously indicated might be useful and hands them over. "Last time we did this, you said there would be a lot of equations pertaining to wormhole frequency." He heads back to the second filing cabinet, where he'd left off last time, and starts searching for more. "That's what we need. I want you to go over those and tell me if there's something there."

McKay doesn't know it, but they've been through enough of this that Ronon actually knows- roughly- what he's looking for, but it doesn't help that Zelenka tended to write sloppily in his native language, and had only taught Ronon a few select curses. They're not particularly useful, but they're running through his head all the same. 

"Holy crap," McKay says, this time. "You weren't kidding, were you?"

"Nope," he shrugs without turning around, but he can feel McKay's eyes on him and they _don't have time for this_. He turns, anyway. Maybe this is what he's been waiting for. "What?"

"I'm sorry, but the time loop thing, it's a little distracting. You sure Zelenka didn't just coach you on what files to grab?"

"No," Ronon turns back to the drawer with a snort, because for a genius, McKay's still not seeing it. " _You_ did."

\--- 

Chuck and Amelia have been muttering to each other every time he's come up to warn Weir; it's gotten to the point where he doesn't have to listen to her anymore, and winds up focusing on their conversation out of frustrated boredom, of all things. 

What he learns is that SG1 went through something similar a few years ago.

It's too late to be any help now, but adding "O'Neill and Teal'c went through the same thing five years ago," into his explanation manages to shave off three minutes of her disbelief the next time he has to explain it. 

\--- 

It doesn't change anything, really. 

\--- 

He wastes eight or nine different chances trying to convince Weir and John not to set the self-destruct. 

They're too well-trained to listen to him. 

\--- 

The next time, instead of helping McKay in the lab once he's pulled the initial files, he tries heading back to the gate room to find John, in case _this_ time he can be talked out of standing right on the front line, so close to the edge of the blast zone. 

John glares at him like he's a traitor for even suggesting it, but he moves back five feet, to the bottom of the stairs. 

It's an improvement, but it's not enough. 

\--- 

The 32rd time, he's up in Weir's office, going over SG1s mission reports that McKay's brought up on the computer, and learns that when it this had happened on Earth, Teal'c and O'Neill learned to juggle.

All Ronon's really learned, he suspects, is how to use Weir's computer to bring up mission reports that tell him everything but what he needs to know, and that even after he's done so half a dozen times, Weir hovers nervously over his shoulder, like she suspects he's about to crash the entire system. 

\--- 

The 33rd, he crashes it on purpose, and considers taking up juggling. 

\---

The 38th time, after getting McKay started on the research, mostly by telling him the things he'd done before, Ronon runs back up to the control room, cutting around the edge of the line and crossing in front of their guns until he reaches John. If John survives for an extra few minutes, maybe McKay would have enough time to get the solution together. Maybe they can save everyone.

"You need to come with me," he says. "I've got an idea." 

"Cutting it kind of close," John smirks, but he takes a few steps towards him, before suddenly stopping short. "Wait a minute. Why didn't you tell me about your idea earlier? Or on the radio?"

 _Because I'm lying, there's no plan, I'm just trying to get you away from the fight. I'm tired of watching you die._ "Because I just had it, and we're short on time, and I can tell you on the way."

"No." John shakes his hand, clearly suspicious, and it's _that_ , deserved as it was, that wrenches more than anything. "We're out of the blast range, and our position is solid. We pick them off as they come through."

They'd tried that at least ten times already, and it either resulted in John being fed upon when the wraith came through, or taking one stunner blast too many. Most of the time, Ronon had still been fighting when it happened. Sometimes, he's only caught it out of the corner of his eye. Ronon shakes his head in frustration. "Can't you just fucking _trust_ me?"

"I _do_ ," John says, eyes full of apology as he turns his radio on. "Med team. Emergency Protocol Nine."

Protocol nine, it turns out, is to shoot Ronon with a tranquilizer gun and fight him down onto a gurney. He never finds out what comes next.

At least he doesn't have to watch John die, this time. 

\--- 

"You don't have to go easy on me," John says, and the bruise from the last round hasn't formed on his arm yet, but it will. He's smirking as they circle each other on the mat. 

_Enough._

"Okay," Ronon says, stepping back and raising his hands, catching John's full attention. "Then here's the deal. I'm stuck in a time loop, like in Groundhog Day, but I'm the only one who remembers. SG1 went through something similar once, and I know that because this is at least the forty-third time we've been through this." His throat's raw from talking so much; John's frowning at him like he's hearing it too. "Michael's about to try dialing in. He's been able to predict the exact time and location of a solar flare that's going surge through the wormhole and damage the shield enough that it fails." He tosses John his radio just in time for him to hear that the gate's been activated. 

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yes. Order Lorne to start evacuating all nonessential personnel, get everyone else to cover the gate from the control room, keeping them at least halfway up the stairs, and come with me." He gets on his radio. 

John's going with it, this time, but apparently the fact that he's trusting Ronon so blindly makes Weir twice as nervous. This time, she's the one who initiates Protocol Nine. 

\--- 

"What about this one?" Ronon hands his most recent find- shoved in the back of the second to last filing cabinet- over to McKay. It's a diagram on graph paper, and looks enough like what he'd seen earlier on McKay's screen that it seems relevant.

Over the radio, all posts are reporting in that they're in place. It's a good sign; going by the clock on the wall, it's nearly four minutes earlier than last time. Last time, they'd only survived for twenty six minutes before he'd wound up in the gym again. He's ripped from his reverie by McKay's clapping.

"Okay," McKay says, grinning crookedly before tapping on his radio. "Sheppard, come in. I think I've got something." 

"I'm a little busy."

"Solution beats stopgap every time," Ronon cuts in. He's the only one who knows that he's claimed that on three separate failures so far. "Get your ass down here."

McKay is back to muttering to himself again as he considers the readout on his screen. For the moment, the stack of papers he's been using is in his hand, forgotten, as he hunches over the desk. Ronon can't believe what he's about to say as he taps his radio off. 

"McKay, I need you to tell me everything. If we run out of time, I can tell you what you need to know next time, maybe save you some time."

"Seriously?" McKay blinks in confusion; it's the same expression they've all been wearing for what _must_ be years, now. "This is all a little outside your area of expertise..." He glances up, actually looks at him before straightening. "Yes. Well-"

John chooses that exact moment to slip into the lab. "All right, what do you have?"

"We've got _you_ ," McKay looks up from the scribbles he's making in the margins. Ronon looks over his shoulder and tries to memorize them, but he figures he's only getting the gist. "More precisely, we've got you and your genes." 

His explanation is confusing, and it's hard to concentrate once the radio in his ear starts blaring the sounds of fighting into his brain. The self-destruct alarm that's starting to go off isn't helping anything, either. McKay's panicking, talking even faster, and he's still not going to finish. 

As far as he's concerned, it's still the first time he's ever died. Ronon's the only one not bothering to brace himself when the self destruct initiates. 

\--- 

He'd joked once that John owed him a fight to the death, but the idea seems morbid, now. He's gotten as far as making sure the initial blast doesn't kill John, but so far, it had only resulted in John getting shot, fed upon, or stunned one too many times. The differences were small but resonating- sometimes he'd see it, sometimes he'd only hear it over the line and his imagination would fill in all the rest. In agonizing detail. 

The 50th time, Ronon's too frustrated to be anywhere but the control room when the wraith arrive; for a few hopeful moments they manage to hold the line, picking them off one by one, but they just keep _coming_.

There's a sharp pain in his leg the second before he takes a stunner blast to the side, and all he can do is watch, frozen and numb, as John crashes to his knees next to him and tries to provide cover fire. 

Blinking is all that he can manage; talking is _impossible_. Ronon can't even tell him how pointless trying is. He's pretty sure he's being dragged, though from this angle, it's impossible to see what John's intending on using as cover.

John slumps over him, suddenly still, his head against Ronon's shoulder. A few moments later, Ronon realizes that the blood soaking into his shirt isn't his own, and all he can see is the ceiling. 

\--- 

"You don't have to go easy on me," John smirks the 51st time, but it's gone the moment he looks at Ronon. "What's wrong?"

Ronon tries locking him in the gym, shuts the door on his worried face and trying to catch his breath. It's not entirely working.

There's not a door in Atlantis that John can't get through; Ronon can't even protect him even _that_ much. He really should've remembered it by now. 

\--- 

By the 57th time, Ronon's finally starting to learn that whatever he does, it doesn't matter. Nothing ever changes, not enough, anyhow. 

At least this time he'd put enough together that he'd condensed his explanations and questions for McKay into a three minute conversation, and even gained some ground- if they get John in the chair by the time the flare hits, it'll default to follow his commands, rather than Michael's.

Upstairs, the Marines are all standing at attention, covering the stairs and the control room, well clear of the impending blast radius, and John's wary, again, of Ronon's reasoning, watching him with unveiled concern as he tries to make his case. 

"You have to come with me," Ronon says, because for everything else he's hoping for, it's the one thing he _knows_ is true. His throat's gone dry, his voice feels rough from overuse. If this doesn't work, he'll grab some water on the way out of the gym. 

John sputters as Ronon grabs him by his collar and starts dragging him away. "The _hell?_ Ronon, the wraith-"

"You'll get them next time."

John lowers his voice, ducks his head down so the Marines won't hear. "After I die, you mean." 

"After _all_ of us die," Ronon points out, too exhausted to pretend otherwise. "You go first, the rest of us are right behind you. I figure if you _don't_ , then maybe the rest of us have a shot."

And this, cruel as it is, seems to do the trick. John's already heading for the lab, and it's only been fifteen minutes. 

Ronon's fighting the sense of relief that's trying to wash over him. In the end, his suspicions are right. 

John's still climbing into the chair when the control room announces that the solar flare's made contact with the wormhole. They're already too late. At least Weir and John had engaged the self-destruct protocol early, this time. They won't have long to wait. 

John's trying to get up, out of the chair, obviously intent on joining the fight, and it won't change anything, but Ronon doesn't let him. The sound of gunfire is loud enough that they don't need the radios to hear. Everyone else, for once, is dying first. 

In forty five seconds, they'll be following. It suddenly feels like an eon. This, here, blocking John from standing up, is the longest Ronon's been able to just stand still. He's got his hand wrapped around John's arm, and squeezes until he looks up at him, his expression destroyed and _furious_. McKay's got his back turned, muttering to himself; he's finally gone quiet, trying to ignore the countdown and it's blocking everything else out but his work. He'll be making calculations until the end. It's still the closest to peace Ronon's felt since they'd walked into the gym and taken their places on the mat. 

"It'll be all right," he promises, and hopes like mad that he's not lying. It'll hurt, it'll be _awful_ , but it's not the end. "I wouldn't be standing here either, if it wasn't." 

John's arm rotates under his hand, and he's clasping Ronon's arm for a full three seconds before trying to focus on him. 

"Okay," he says, his eyes searching Ronon's. "Okay." Seven more seconds go by under his scrutiny before he takes a deep breath. "Well, if you're right, you'll remember, and if you're wrong, you won't, but just in case, I'd rather have you remember than never know."

"What?" Ronon wishes he'd hurry up and spit it out. John's putting his hand up to the side of Ronon's face, but he's already got his attention and they only have nineteen more seconds.

John continues to hold Ronon's gaze, just long enough that he's finding himself scrambling to identify the sense of recognition he's feeling- this was new, this hadn't happened any of the other times- 

-and John's leaning in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. It's brief. 

"I love you, man. Take it however you will." 

Ronon blinks in surprise, but John's pulling away already and it's better when he's here. 

With his last breath, he kisses John back. 

\--- 

He'd just been kissing John, and somewhere between the blast and the gym, something's changed.

The bruise on John's face hasn't formed on his arm yet, but it will. He's smirking as they circle each other on the mat. And then John stops, recognition dawning on his face. 

"What the hell?" 

_This never happened before_ , Ronon realizes, and all he can offer up in response is to echo John's words. 

"What the hell?"

"What're you- this." John shakes his head. "Time loop. Groundhog day. Everyone dies. Got it."

"You remember everything?" Ronon manages, but he's not sure what he means. 

" _Everything_ ," John says, too suddenly for Ronon to even start grasping what that means. His eyes can't quite hide his nervousness, but he's trying, burying it further under a flurry of movement, grabbing his radio off the bench as he heads for the door. "I'll send McKay down to the lab, then meet you guys in the chair room." 

Ronon's halfway to the lab before he gets his earpiece in, and the momentary elation he'd had, that finally their luck had changed- that at least they're _finally_ all on the same page- crashes down fast. 

Weir doesn't remember a thing. John's trying to explain it to her, and he's no better at it than Ronon was, his first dozen times around. 

Still, though, not having to be in two places at once means he's ready for McKay before he even arrives in the lab. By the time Ronon's managed to explain the modification that needs to be done to the chair's uplink capabilities, and gotten McKay down to the chair room, John's already seated, waiting for them. 

When the flare happens, John's already there supplying the new base protocol orders. According to McKay, Atlantis's connection skips, but never drops. It doesn't lash out looking for anything else to latch onto, and Michael can't get a foothold. 

Two minutes later, the gate shuts down, and it would feel anticlimactic, but Ronon's had enough of those for a lifetime. 

\--- 

"You don't have to go easy on me," John smirks, feinting left before attacking from the right. The bantos rod cracks hard on Ronon's shoulder, and he has to admit, he's about ten seconds from agreeing wholeheartedly. 

"I'm not sure Atlantis will _let_ me," he glares instead, rolling his eyes when John laughs. 

It's already been established- in long detail, over the course of too many meetings and debriefings and an IOA investigation that had gone on for _days_ \- that the solar flare combining with the massive energy of Atlantis's destruction had triggered some secondary backup mechanism that McKay and Zelenka, for all their talk, still haven't _really_ figured out. It may have been John's connection with the city that stopped the cycle from repeating, but it was John's connection with _Ronon_ that had resulted in Ronon's retention of memory. 

It was Weir who'd figured that part out, after two weeks spent poring over everything she could find in the database. She'd announced her findings to them quietly, in her office. McKay had only been there because it had been easier to give him an answer than to let him keep looking, and he hadn't been able to look at either John or Ronon without blushing or stuttering for days, now. 

"It's actually quite remarkable," she'd explained from the other side of her desk. "Atlantis needed someone to save Colonel Sheppard from himself, it seems, in order that John could save Atlantis." Her tone had been diplomatic as she'd glanced sidelong at John, whose expression was nearly as stone-faced as his own. 

When she'd turned to address him, though, he'd found himself struggling to suppress a guilty grin. "And being as how it's so attuned to his thoughts, it knew to identify _you_ as being that person."

And as true as that might be- as true as Ronon _knows_ it is, now that it's three weeks later, he's learned a little bit more. 

Atlantis might not let John die, but it's slightly less consistent regarding bruises. 

Ronon resets his footing, leading with the right this time, and attacks from the right, getting a solid hit on John's shoulder that's met with a pained yelp.

And later, once they're done here, he can kiss the mark that's left, just to be sure.


End file.
